In “Alice through the Looking Glass,” boating is a metaphor for life slipping by–unnoticed by Alice but seen as deeply tragic by Carroll.
Monthly Archives: July 2018
The Dreamlike Pleasures of Rowing
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Aging, Alice through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, lost innocence, rowing Comments closed
Climate Change Witchery
Leslie Marmon Silko’s nightmare vision of environmental destruction is being hastened by the Trump administration.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Ceremony, climate change, Donald Trump, global warming, Leslie Marmon Silko Comments closed
Hot Sun, Cool Fire
Renaissance writer George Peele was fascinated by Bathsheba, depicting an erotic mixture of hot passion and cool restraint.
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Apples That Taste of Earth and Song
Apples bring out poetic creativity, all the more so because the West has seen them as the forbidden fruit. I share here a selection of tempting apple poems.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "August", "eve's version", "Song of the Wander Aengus", apples, Charles Algernon Swinburne, Christina Rossetti, fruit, Goblin Market, Grace Schulman, Grimm Brothers, John Milton, Lucille Clifton, Paradise Lost, Snow White, temptation, the fall, William Butler Yeats Comments closed
Robert Mueller as Peter Wimsey
Much of the country is hoping that the Mueller investigation plays out like a Dorothy Sayers novel, with truth and justice prevailing in the end.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Collusions, detective fiction, Donald Trump, Dorothy Sayers, Five Red Herrings, soft-boiled detectives, Trump investigation Comments closed
Trump’s Enablers Operate as Pilot Fish
Herman Melville’s “Maldive Shark” captures how policy works in the White House. Trump is the shark, his enablers the pilot fish.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Maldive Shark", Donald Trump, Herman Melville, Jared Kushner, Trump cabinet members, Trump siblings Comments closed
Hummingbirds and the Life Force
Monday Happiness is watching hummingbirds feed. The two that visit our feeders—which is to say, the one that feeds and the one that gets chased away—are resplendent in their shimmering colors, reminding me of the hummingbird in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony. As the Laguna Pueblo author sees it, hummingbirds have a direct connection to the […]
Tolstoy: For Happiness, Love & Sacrifice
In “The Cossacks,” a dissipated young man finds spiritual meaning when he journeys to the Caucasus.
